Catherine of Aragon, first
Queen of Henry
VIII, was the youngest child of King Ferdinand of Aragon and
Queen Isabella of Castile & Leon. She had an excellent and learned education
and was married, in 1501, to Arthur, eldest son of King Henry
VII, but she never
lived with him as his wife. The Prince died in the following April at the age of
sixteen and Catherine was betrothed in 1503 to his brother Henry. A Papal
dispensation was procured from Pope Julius II to hallow this more than
doubtfully lawful union. In 1505, when the marriage was to have taken place,
Henry, then aged fourteen, registered, by his father's advice, a protest against
its completion; and it is clear that Henry VII's main object in the whole
business was to retain possession of one half of the very considerable dowry of
the Princess. Ferdinand, on his side, was anxious not to have to pay the other
half, which, however, Henry at last extorted from him.

Catherine's life must have been
a very miserable one until 1509, when Henry VII died, and Henry VIII, who seems
to have been really fond of her, married her two months after his accession. He
left her as Regent when he went to fight in France, in 1513, and during her
regency the Battle of Flodden was won against the Scots. Her father's continuous
treachery towards his English allies may have weakened the King's affection for
Catherine, but it seems more probable that it was the successive deaths of four
children, and the fact that only one girl - Queen
Mary Tudor - survived from their union, that
gradually cooled her husband's affection and led him to question the original
validity of his marriage.

At all events, in 1526, the
question of a divorce began to be secretly mooted and Wolsey was in favour of
it. Catherine maintained from the first a dignified and active resistance to any
such suggestion: her best counsellor in the matter was John Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester. In 1528, the Pope sent over an Italian Cardinal, Campeggio, nominally
to hold a joint inquiry with Wolsey into the validity of the marriage, but with
secret instructions to avoid pronouncing a decision. After various shifts, in
which neither King nor Pope appears with such credit as the injured Queen, the
case was revoked to Rome and this practically terminated all Henry's hopes of a
divorce by Papal authority.

In July 1531, Henry finally
left Catherine's society. She was bundled off to Easthampstead in Berkshire and
he never saw her again. Meanwhile, Parliament had met, in 1529, and had
commenced to pass the series of Acts which effected the final breach with the
Papacy. As soon as the Act of Appeals had become law, the Archbishop of
Canterbury held a court at Dunstable and pronounced in favour of the divorce.
Catherine then became, so far as English law could make her, merely the
'Princess Dowager,' but the people of England, with whom the divorce was most
unpopular, continued to salute her as Queen.

Catherine was removed to Moor
Park (Herts), then Bishop's Hatfield (Herts) and Kimbolton Castle (Hunts). Her
household was much reduced and severe pressure was put upon her, though in vain,
to induce her to acquiesce in her changed position. Long after it was too late
(1534) the Pope pronounced in favour of the validity of her marriage, but this
could now do Catherine no good, for Parliament had already recognized Anne
Boleyn as Queen and withdrawn England from obedience to the Pope. Catherine
utterly refused to take the oath attached to the new Act of Succession, though
the penalty for refusing was death, and though she lived long enough to hear
that her saintly friend, Bishop Fisher, and Sir Thomas More had been beheaded
for refusing. She died at Kimbolton, firm to the last, praying for forgiveness
for her enemies, and forgiving the King for all his cruelty towards her. She was
honourably buried at Peterborough Cathedral.

Everything
that we know of Queen Catherine is to her credit: she was a loyal and grossly
injured wife, an affectionate friend and mother, and a faithful subject of her
adopted country. In the exercise of the strictest piety according to the
practices of the Roman church, she found, in the days of her misfortune, her
only consolation.